The best proof of intelligent life in space is that it hasn't come here.

The crossing of space ... may do much to turn men's minds outwards and away from their present tribal squabbles. In this sense, the rocket, far from being one of the destroyers of civilisation, may provide the safety-value that is needed to preserve it.

The moment when one first meets a great work of art has an impact that can never again be recaptured.

The one fact about the future of which we can be certain is that it will be utterly fantastic.

Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living.

... chemistry is a trade for people without enough imagination to be physicists.

If there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they can't be very important gods.